Breadcrumbs

I came home from dropping my son at his classmate’s house for carpool. My heart had been heavy and burdened with many circumstances beyond my control and then I looked up for a while and witnessed this:

I took a shot right away and reflected on how we can be so “spent” by always looking down or across. There are so many things we can complain about when we get used to always just looking at eye level or looking down. I saw that morning’s view as God speaking to me to look up, to look to Him, the Author and Perfecter of my faith as in Hebrews 9:22 “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.”

And so that scene of layers of clouds stuck in my mind and I asked my artist daughter, Raya (see her works in “Raya’s Room Category” in this blog) to teach me how to create simple clouds using watercolor, water, watercolor paper and some tissue.

Here are the steps:

Use water color paper. We used a small watercolor pad from Fully Booked. It was about the size of 1/4 of a long bond paper.

Using a palette, put a tinge of blue watercolor paint and water it down to create a very light blue.

Using a medium side brushed, dab the watered down blue and start brush in streaks like so:

Spread your brush dapped in watercolor/water across creating various shades of blue.

4. Before the paint dries off, get a tissue and start blotting off some of the wet paint and create “cloud like” patches.

5. You can add other colors or details.

Isn’t it pretty?

As we were about to end our homeschool day, we read poems from our Language textbook. Lo and behold, our assigned poem was about “Clouds”. Isn’t such homeschool days simply amazing? If we hadn’t done our Science already for that day, this lesson may have been extended to study about types of clouds, cloud formation, and weather in general. So we read the poem and thought of various ways to describe “clouds” — adjectives, similes and metaphors, and to describe movement of clouds, using adverbs and action verbs!

This Art/Language activity is so simple. Preschoolers will enjoy it for sure. I remember many lessons, when the children were younger, we had a unit on clouds and we used a book entitled, The Cloud ( a book I got from book sale),

For older kids, you may use Science reference books or online sites.

Hopefully, this lesson lands on you on a day with bright blue skies dotted with lovely patches of clouds. Don’t forget to go out and look up. If it is cool and windy, lay a mat, and lie down with your kids. I love looking at clouds and imagining what figures seem to be coming out of the clouds.

All three photos are sourced from (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2291921/Puff-The-Magic-Dragon-Cloud-formation-bears-striking-resemblance-mythical-creature.html):

I cannot verify the veracity of this photo but this caught my eye on Facebook:

The “cloudy” day lifted my tired heart and weary eyes indeed. May this activity also lift you up. After all, it is always a blessing to LOOK UP:)

Job 37 :15-16 “Do you know how God establishes them, And makes the lightning of His cloud to shine? “Do you know about the layers of the thick clouds, The wonders of one perfect in knowledge.”

Exodus 13:21-22 “The LORD was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.?”